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words of life

It is like recalling a car with a deficient part. I would love to recall all our graduates and put a new part in them - an expository one.

These are the words of a president of a leading theological college in the Middle East North Africa region - words which I heard with my own ears earlier this year. I feel his longing. But I wonder if the issue is more basic than the 'expository' part ... might it be the deeper, more foundational issue of a theology of word, a doctrine of Scripture, that needs recalling and replacing?

A generation ago Jacques Ellul wrote a book on how the word has been 'humiliated'. The various philosophical trends have conspired to weaken the word, to create suspicion about its ability to represent meaning, and to raise the alarm about the way it oppresses peoples. We are told that it has a diminished place in popular culture and public life (... but try telling that to millions of TED talk enthusiasts and almost as many millions of fans of the maiden speech of a young Scottish MP - the word-filled monologue seems to be alive and well, no matter what the ivory towers tell us!).

Rehabilitation needs to be the response to humiliation. Too much is at stake. To help restore confidence it needs a course at the college - or, at least, part of one - and it needs some careful reading and the occasional preaching series in the church.

I love the shape of the book.
Ward moves from the 'biblical' (dealing with specific texts), to the 'theological' (discussing the relationship between Scripture and each member of the Trinity), to the 'doctrinal' (explaining the attributes of Scripture: necessity, sufficiency, clarity and authority) - and then onto the 'applied' (earthing his findings in the life of the believer and the community). In doing so he provides a model on how to grapple with issues of significance.

I love the way he addresses the big issues in my journey.
It is uncanny. Turn a page and there is another one. Forgive me for becoming more personal here. But so many of my issues seem to be here - simply and directly explained. Plus the guy is a wise and winsome pastor. It is obvious. Reminiscent of Tim Keller's writings, in these pages we discover someone acquainted with the issues of real people, immersed in real life with real (and thoughtful) questions about the Bible.

From my years as a student: there are words for my confusion over where Karl Barth fits (60-67); for my struggle with being confident in the formation of the biblical canon (89-92); and then for my sifting through words like inspiration (79-84) and inerrancy (130-140) - first, trying to understand them and then trying to decide whether they are useful or not - in the midst of those polemical 80s in the USA.

From my years as a pastor: there are words for my frustration with the YWAM-generation and the way they kept using the word 'inspiration' when they meant 'illumination' (92-94, 168-174); for my confusion over whether the divine:human incarnation is an accurate model for a divine:human Scripture (74-78); for my annoyance with the sovereignty of an individual's personal interpretation of scripture - what Ward calls solo scriptura, rather than sola scriptura (146-151) ... and the entire book speaks into my disappointment about the way Word always trailed so far behind Sign and Deed in the priorities and passions of churches and their leaders.

From my years in theological education: there are words for my conversation in a car with a senior Baptist leader on Balmoral Rd (Auckland), in my first weeks as a principal, when he expressed horror that I should want to make the Bible the basis of the curriculum, and as he drove his car he drove this wedge between Christ and Scripture as the word of God, elevating the former while diminishing the latter (67-74); for my intention to slow down the theologians' rush to systematization (50-51; 96-97); for my desire to be pro-Word and pro-Spirit at the same time (78-95, another wedge to dismantle!); and for my struggle to understand, and then appreciate, speech-act theory (57-60).

And now, for my years as a trainer of preachers: the entire book strengthens my convictions about the ongoing place of words in the mission of God. 'God acts by speaking (23) ... in biblical language and theology, God speaking and God acting are often one and the same thing (26) ... God has so identified himself with his words that whatever someone does to God's words they do directly to God himself.' (27). And then there is a little purple patch on the Bible and preaching (156-170) which so refreshed and renewed me.

A couple more comments:
In his discussions of the necessity, the clarity, the sufficiency, and the authority of Scripture (96-140), Ward acknowledges that 'none is a term given to us in Scripture, so we are not bound to them' (106) ... but then he builds his case for each one by making it clear 'what I am saying', but also 'what I am not saying'. It is a masterful piece of wise, winsome and irenic reasoning in a debate so plagued by polemics.

And striking a blow to the chronological snobs out there, he takes us back, repeatedly, to the tried and the true - and the very, very old: John Calvin, Francis Turretin, BB Warfield, and Herman Bavinck - with the relatively unfamiliar Turretin the stand-out to me. For example, on the relationship between Word and Spirit:

The former works objectively, the latter efficiently; the former strikes the ears from without, the latter opens the heart from within (93).

nice chatting - and with the rather forlorn hope that those who most need to read this book will actually do so.

Comments

Bottom line?! He writes as a pastor. It comes through so obviously. Reading it alongside DeYoung's one has been so helpful for me ... and I notice Keller has since recommended the pair of them as the place to begin on the topic.